Just a day after Hewlett-Packard announced plans to discontinue its WebOS operations, Microsoft made a play for the developers who created applications for the operating system.

Twitter; screenshot by Jay Greene/CNET

Brandon Watson, the director of developer experience for Windows Phone, tweeted this afternoon that Microsoft would provide free phones, developer tools and training to help any published WebOS developers make the switch to Windows Phone. Watson wrote that the company will give those developers "what you need to be successful."

Of course, like WebOS, Windows Phone trails Google's Android and Apple's iOS in the mobile device operating system market. Any new developers to the platform can only help its bid to catch up to rivals.

And sure enough, within a few minutes, Watson was receiving and replying via Twitter to a stream of developers who had seen his offer.

About the author

Jay Greene, a CNET senior writer, works from Seattle and focuses on investigations and analysis. He's a former Seattle bureau chief for BusinessWeek and author of the book "Design Is How It Works: How the Smartest Companies Turn Products into Icons" (Penguin/Portfolio).
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